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DSCC ad revives Berg's rocky town hall

By ALEXANDER BURNS

09/18/2012 03:32 PM EDT

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is continuing to pummel North Dakota Rep. Rick Berg on the issue of Medicare, using a new TV ad to revive footage of Berg defending his support for the Paul Ryan budget during a 2011 town hall meeting.

The DSCC’s new independent expenditure spot, which was shared early with POLITICO, begins with a clip of Berg speaking to a group of voters and insisting his votes wouldn’t compromise Medicare: “Fifty-five or over, 55 or over. OK, absolute no change. Absolute no change in this Medicare proposal.”

Then, both a narrator and a voter ID-ed as Alice Oban of Bismarck deliver the attack.

“Rick Berg’s Medicare plan would raise prescription costs for North Dakota seniors immediately. For the rest of us, it would replace guaranteed benefits with a voucher,” the narrator says. Oban appears on screen, continuing: “That means fighting with insurance companies, paying more out of pocket, and that’s just not right.”

Democrats – Senate nominee Heidi Heitkamp, the DSCC and the outside group Majority PAC – have put significant money on the line in order to keep the North Dakota race competitive, driving up Berg’s negatives by attacking him as a Washington insider who wants to gut Medicare. Berg and his outside-group allies have responded by tying Heitkamp to Barack Obama and the Affordable Care Act. Neither side has yet broken open a race that many expected Republicans to put away pretty early.